Kilkenny hurler Eoin Murphy helped launch the brand-new Blueberry flavour Avonmore Protein Milk, just in time for a busy summer of sport. Avonmore Protein Milk is proud to partner with GAA players as part of their training regime. A contribution from each litre of Avonmore Protein Milk sold is redirected towards GAA initiatives to fund grass roots GAA and GPA player development programmes.
By Cian O'Connell
Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy is back in light training following a serious leg injury.
The Glenmore clubman, though, is uncertain about when he will be able to return to competitive action after a broken tibia.
"I’m off the crutches a week and a half and did a light bit of jogging yesterday," Murphy confirmed. "It’s a little bit stiff today. It’s the first time I’ve done anything in six or seven weeks. It’s just a progression thing then.
"There’s no real time frame on it. Where it’s broke, it’s a load-bearing bone. You start off with the jogging and you start increasing it if there’s no injury then.
"I’m delighted to be back, even from a mental point of view. Delighted to be back with the lads. But I’m still in a pair of runners, and I probably will be for the next week or two."
While Murphy is expected to miss another few weeks, the damage could have been worse according to the Kilkenny custodian. "It was sort of a twist with a hyper-extension involved so I was lucky I didn’t do any other damage to it," Murphy adds.
Kilkenny hurler Eoin Murphy helped launch the brand-new Blueberry flavour Avonmore Protein Milk, just in time for a busy summer of sport. Avonmore Protein Milk is proud to partner with GAA players as part of their training regime. A contribution from each litre of Avonmore Protein Milk sold is redirected towards GAA initiatives to fund grass roots GAA and GPA player development programmes.
"There’s a silver lining to everything, but it’s not an ideal time to be injured, it’s going to be hard to get the pace back now. You don’t want to be missing games.
"You don’t want to be injured anyway, but you don’t want to be missing games. That’s the way it’s gone now with the inter-county season, if you do pick up a knock now or anything like that, you could miss three quarters of it. There are a big couple of games coming up now."
Murphy acknowledged that he isn't a great patient. "Terrible," Murphy laughed. "I want a time frame. The medical team, I’d say they’re like, ‘this lad coming back again!’ But even for yourself, your own psychological side, you want ‘I’m doing this, where do I go from here?’ And stuff like that.
"When I got the crutches off then, I was all excited. I was like ‘I’m back in the gym, I’ll be able to do a few things’. And they were like ‘hold on here a second, we’ll have to make sure you’re ok to walk first of all’.
"Walk before you run. I’m doing bike and things, it’s obviously not the same. Hopefully now in a couple of weeks, hopefully we’re still involved in different things. There are a big couple of games coming up for us.
Murphy remains hopeful of being involved at some stage of the 2019 Championship for Kilkenny. "It just depends on the progression," Murphy says. "If I go jogging tomorrow night and it’s sore, unfortunately there’ll be a rest period involved again there. There’ll be a certain protocol before I go back jogging again. That’s just the nature of the injury. I don’t know."
